NME presents 50 Forgotten '90s Bands

评语：Are Trail of Dead a 90’s band or an 00’s band? It all really depends where you picked up the trail, but the hairy Austin rockers and wanton destroyers of drumkits (sometimes two drum kits) actually formed in 1994. They're still going and their ninth album - cleverly titled ‘IX’ - is out later this year.

评语：Formed partially from the remnants of underground artpop collective Minty (led by the late great Leigh Bowery), The Servant named themselves after a tremendously creepy Dirk Bogarde movie and featured the simian-obsessed Dan Black on vocals. Their debut 1999 EP - 'Mathematics' - is a lost classic, although not in France and Italy, where the group were rightfully cherished.

评语：Though Flowered up seemed to germinate from the Madchester scene of the late 80’s/ early 90’s, they were actually from Camden Town. NME cover stars with much expected of them, they criminally only released one album - A Life With Brian - and split a few years later due to a lack of productivity. Sadly singer Liam Maher died of a heroin overdose in 2009.

评语：Casey Kasem died recently, but whatever happened to his (almost) namesake Casey Chaos, who was everywhere in the late 90s looking like Robbie Williams dressed up as Frank N. Furter? Amen also featured Slayer’s former drummer Dave Lombardo for a while, and how could you not rock with Dave Lombardo in the band? Answer: Amen did rock. Amen to that.

评语：Such a fatalistic band name, and how perfect for Romeo and Juliet - the play that took “dead romantic” literally. The Wannadies appeared on the soundtrack of the Baz Luhrmann version, and how we swooned at ‘The You and Me Song’. Such a glorious tune, and yet does anyone remember anything else they ever did? Do the band even remember?

评语：If proof were needed there isn’t a God, then just look at the success of the Stereophonics and the fact Gorky’s stayed relatively below the radar. The Carmarthen warriors may not have worried the charts too much, but their five years together is now spoken about in reverent, hushed whispers having taken folk to somewhere spiky, interesting and delightful.

评语：Probably less appreciated at the time than they are now, Earl Brutus created their own hoary motornik glam and wowed fans with their incendiary and often chaotic live shows. Singer Nick Sanderson played in late period Jesus and Mary Chain, and when he tragically died from lung cancer aged 47, the Reid brothers put their differences aside to play together at his funeral.

评语：Although named after the Krzysztof Kieślowski arthouse film of the same name, there was nothing highfalutin about these hard drinking, hard rocking miscreants (they apparently stuck a pin in Time Out when choosing their name). Signed to Alan McGee’s Creation in the latter half of the 90s, the Chris McCormack-led bruisers cracked the top 20 of the UK album charts twice.

评语：Princes Risborough’s finest sons and daughter emerged just as Britpop was dissipating and at the moment Embrace were being held up as indie’s new darlings for one boring second, Tiger weren’t; they were however getting on with the task of being dead good. ‘Race’ scraped the top 40 and they disappeared without trace soon after. Altogether now, “she’s in the corner, giving the orders.”

评语：Skunk Anansie were so big that they were given the Sunday night headline slot on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage in ‘99. Singer Skin was still pinching herself on the night, and to be honest, none of us could believe it either. Time travel may not really exist, but put ‘Hedonism’ on this second and I swear to Christ you’ll be transported back to the mid-90s in an instant.

评语：Luke Haines brought his acerbic songs to the Britpop party. An almost even bigger upset nearly occurred when the Auteurs narrowly missed out to Suede for the 1993 Mercury Prize. Haines says he’ll never reform the Auteurs, a pity given none of his records (except maybe Baader Meinhof) have come close to the diabolical brilliance of the band’s four underrated albums.

评语：A poor man’s Pearl Jam was often levelled at Stone Temple Pilots in the 90s, though to be fair, their second album ‘Purple’ in 1994 saw them develop their own more psychedelic rock direction. Okay, so this multi-platinum selling band are hardly forgotten, but perhaps they’re a little unfairly derided, no?

评语：Mick Head certainly had fans in the music press, but the admiration for his songwriting talents never really converted into record sales. He actually formed Shack with his brother in 1986, though much of the acclaim and the “lost genius” tag were bestowed in the late 90s. Shack even signed to Noel Gallagher’s Sour Mash label alongside those other notorious non starters, Proud Mary.

评语：Veruca Salt's name actually comes from the ‘orrible spoilt kid in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and then you think about what the words actually mean and vomit. Veruca Salt burst out of Chicago during the early 90’s and because they were noisy and featured girls they were lazily categorised as Riot Grrrl by many, though they weren’t. Not really.

评语：Sneaker Pimps founder Chris Corner could never quite bring the attention back to himself once singer Kelli Ali departed the band, and the signature song she sang - ‘6 Underground’ - simply refused to die! It did well on its release, and then was used in the movie version of The Saint, doing even better on its re-release. Chris later relocated to Berlin and formed IAMX.

评语：What a peculiar tale this was, and one that could only really have happened in the 90s because a) people still gave a hoot about the charts and b) Mark Radcliffe had power. In fact Radcliffe rinsed this unknown quantity on his radio show and ‘Your Woman’ ended up at no.1. Jyoti Prakash never really did trouble the charts again, though some of his other stuff was quite good too.

评语：Fronted by Rick Witter, I defy you not to put ‘A Maximum High’ on this very second, whack the volume up to 10 and not think ‘hmmm, Shed Seven were better than I thought’.

评语：Tanya Donelly had made a name for herself in Throwing Muses and as a short-lived but founding member of The Breeders with Kim Deal, and then she struck gold again and had commercial success with Belly, despite taking the slang name for someone’s abdomen. Their biggest hit - ‘Gepetto’ - was about the famous wooden toymaker who is currently being investigated by Operation Yewtree.

评语：It turns out Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes was a way better songwriter than she was a singer. Everyone surely remembers ‘What’s Up’. Since she broke the band up in ‘95, she’s worked with Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani, Sugababes and most famously Christina Aguilera. She also recently married Darlene from Roseanne (actress Sara Gilbert)!

评语：Jas Mann (not to be confused with Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman) must have exploded with joy when ‘Spaceman’ was chosen for the new Levis advert in 1995. The problem was, the bit chosen for the advert - the cool intro bit - was great, the song itself that proceeded afterwards was a bit of a drudge.

评语：My Drug Hell had their 15 minutes when secret indie obsessive Robbie Williams was snapped wearing their t-shirt, with the tabloids assuming he was commenting on his own life rather than just wearing the t-shirt of a band he was digging at the time.

评语：Idlewild were a fantastic Scottish indie band who saw shapes and had a brilliantly monikered singer called Roddy Woomble. At some point they got rid of their ace drunken bass player Bob, headed off in a new bland REM b-sides direction and everyone yawned and forgot about them. Apparently they’re back again, though Bob remains consigned to the dustbin of history. Shame.

评语：Jane’s Addiction are a band that have split up and got back together again even more times than The Wildhearts, Madness and The Libertines all rolled into one. During one sabbatical, Perry Farrell even took seriously the prospect of having another band for a while, hence Porno for Pyros. Their best song was ‘Pets’, though everyone thinks it’s Jane’s Addiction anyway.

评语：If you’ve ever looked at Jamie Hince and thought ‘Christ, he looks old, maybe he’s just had a hard life,’ the truth of the matter is he is actually quite old. Before the Kills he had an indie band called Scarfo and they did some quite nice tunes. Don’t feel sorry for him, he’s married to Kate Moss.

评语：It’s odd to think these dumbass Californian surfer rock dudes reached double platinum status in the early 90s thanks to their MTV-approved monster smash ‘Everything About You’. The song was sort of like a love song, but wherever you’d expect the word ‘love’, they changed it to ‘hate’. They then had another big hit with a Cat Stevens number before slipping into obscurity.